Quotes & Sayings About Retail

I did work at a mall in college - I think retail/customer service is just one of the most hideous jobs in the world. So I always try to be extra nice when I go into a store. But malls are part of our culture, if you watched any teen comedy in the '80s. it's clear that malls are where we live! — Jayma Mays

No one in my family had a retail or marketing background. They were professionals. They didn't understand just what I was doing by going into retailing. After I started, though, it got into my blood. I knew this was what I wanted. — Andrea Jung

Like us, many students had spent their years in college thinking they'd get that well-paying, planet-saving job, even if they'd heard horror stories from recent underemployed grads. Those jobs, of course, no longer exist (if they ever did). By 2009, 17.4 million college graduates had jobs that didn't even require a degree. There are 365,000 cashiers and 318,000 waiters and waitresses in America who have bachelor's degrees, as do one-fifth of those working in the retail industry. More than 100,000 college graduates are janitors and 18,000 push carts. (There are 5,057 janitors in the United States who have doctorates and professional degrees!) — Ken Ilgunas

Neville [Chamberlain] has a retail mind in a wholesale business. — David Lloyd George

When we can drain the Ocean into mill-ponds, and bottle up the Force of Gravity, to be sold by retail, in gas jars; then may we hope to comprehend the infinitudes of man's soul under formulas of Profit and Loss; and rule over this too, as over a patent engine, by checks, and valves, and balances. — Thomas Carlyle

After I retired, it seemed to me that there was a whole new world out there, which was a digital world driven by a marketplace, basically, which had a huge potential driven by handheld devices, which would one day become the virtual retail store of India. — Ratan Tata

A great deal of the wealth at the top is built on the low-wage labor of the poor. Take Wal-Mart, our largest private employer and premiere exploiter of the working class ... You think it's a coincidence that this union-busting low-wage retail empire happens to have generated a $65 billion family fortune? — Barbara Ehrenreich

I'm in the retail business, not the circus business. — Philip Green

It is a well-known fact that bringing in technologies in retail sector is good for consumers. — N. R. Narayana Murthy

Every time a consumer walks into a retail store, experiences the Nokia experience for the first time and purchases that product. Those are the moments where you say, 'We've hit it. We've nailed it.' — Stephen Elop

So cotton growers, siphoning from the Ogallala, get three billion dollars a year in taxpayer money for fiber that is shipped to China, where it is used to make cheap clothing sold back to American chain retail stores like Wal-Mart. — Timothy Egan

With all due respect to Speaker Hastert, trying to eliminate the IRS by adopting a national retail sales tax is a very dumb idea. — Bruce Bartlett

A free-enterprise economy depends only on markets, and according to the most advanced mathematical macroeconomic theory, markets depend only on moods: specifically, the mood of the men in the pinstripes, also known as the Boys on the Street. When the Boys are in a good mood, the market thrives; when they get scared or sullen, it is time for each one of us to look into the retail apple business. — Barbara Ehrenreich

Basically we get confused a bit about what retail is. It is really just buying things, putting them on a floor and selling them. — Gerry Harvey

At its zenith Sears accounted for more than 2 percent of all retail sales in the United States. It pioneered several innovations critical to the success of today's most admired retailers: for example, supply chain management, store brands, catalogue retailing, and credit card sales. The esteem in which Sears' management was held shows in this 1964 excerpt from Fortune: "How did Sears do it? In a way, the most arresting aspect of its story is that there was no gimmick. Sears opened no big bag of tricks, shot off no skyrockets. Instead, it looked as though everybody in its organization simply did the right thing, easily and naturally. And their cumulative effect was to create an extraordinary powerhouse of a company. — Clayton M Christensen

In certain cases I don't want to sell tracks individually; I want to only sell the whole album. With simple things like that I just don't get any response [from iTunes]. I don't want to kill iTunes - I just want to offer my own retail experience in my own tiny corner of the Internet. — DJ Shadow

I went to Bergdorf Goodman as an assistant in the fashion office and that was really my first exposure into the world of retail. Dawn Mello was president at the time and she had just left Gucci where she found Tom Ford. — Roopal Patel

It was a small of her back and her face that got so tired. Their (her retail employer's) mono was supposed to be, 'Keep on your toes and smile.' Once she was out of the store she had to frown a long time to get her face natural again. Even her ears were tired. — Carson McCullers

People are always going to go shopping. A lot of our effort is just: 'How do we make the retail experience a great one?' — Philip Green

At some point, all comics have to go out and be retail salesmen doing door-to-door. And this idea of somebody who totally knows their craft having to get up for free in front of a crowd to work out some stuff they're thinking in their head, still, after as much success as you can get, is really interesting. — Ira Glass

Smartphone makers sought deeper ties with retail buyers by adding ring tones, games, Web browsers, and other applications to their phones. Carriers, however, wanted this business to themselves. If they couldn't sell applications within their "walled gardens," carriers worried they would be reduced to mere utilities or "dumb pipes" carrying data and voice traffic. Nokia learned the hard way just how ferociously carriers could defend their turf. In the late 1990s the Finnish phone maker launched Club Nokia, a Web-based portal that allowed customers to buy and download — Jacquie McNish

I only like luxury fashion. You have to decide where you stand. I like well-made, authentic clothes, well-crafted tailoring. I also like the dream and fantasy of luxury, the exception and rarity of it. I have no interest at all in fast retail. It is ambiguous. — Hedi Slimane

I wanted to create a new way of looking at retail. — Tory Burch

At age 28, I had no retail experience, no consumer marketing experience and no real Internet experience. But I decided I wanted to work for myself. I felt starting a company would enable me to get the responsibility I deserved and that I couldn't do that within the confines of a bigger company. — Mariam Naficy

I support both a Fair Tax and a Flat Tax plan that would dramatically streamline the tax system. A Fair Tax would replace all federal taxes on personal and corporate income with a single national tax on retail sales, while a Flat Tax would apply the same tax rate to all income with few if any deductions or exemptions. — Ralph Hall

You walk into a retail store, whatever it is, and if there's a sense of entertainment and excitement and electricity, you wanna be there. — Howard Schultz

Then life began, and since then we remember each dumpster, abandoned house, and foot-chase by retail security. At night, after running around, plotting and scheming, our checklist items all crossed out, we paused to think - 'What to do tomorrow?' and the answer was always, 'As we please ... — CrimethInc.

I think we can bring a new retail language to Rockefeller Center that would really change Midtown. — Jerry Speyer

Retail is selling things that don't come back to customers who do. — Tony Farmer

Soon a whole guild of low-priced shrine keepers around Europe named their own pope - Boldface the Relatively Shameless, Discount Pope of Prague. The price war was on [ ... ] The Retail Pope would offer cheesy bacon toppings on the Host with communion and the Discount Pope would counter with topless nun night for midnight mass. — Christopher Moore

For example, suppose you are seeking a job as a retail manager. You might bring added value by being fluent in English, Spanish, and French. Being trilingual may not be part of the job description but can be a valuable asset when working with diverse employees and customers who speak Spanish and French. This Value-Added message may tip the scale in your favor. Possibly you are seeking a job as a fifth grade teacher. If you are an expert in computers and computer programming, these skills may not be part of the job description but might be perceived as having high value to an academic institution. If you are an expert electrician, but you are also highly skilled in sales, this added value of contributing to new business development efforts might be the differentiator, the added skill that will help you land a job quickly in tough markets. — Jay A. Block

For my whole career in retail, I have stuck by one guiding principle. It's a simple one, and I have repeated it over and over and over in this book until I'm sure you're sick to death of it. But I'm going to say it again anyway: the secret of successful retailing is to give your customers what they want. — Sam Walton

The Center for Energy and Climate Solutions determined in 2000 that the Internet saved 1.5 billion square feet in retail space and 2 billion square feet of office space and reduced the amount of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere by 35 million metric tons. — Richard Stim

Was there anything quite so under-rated in this shallow, plastic, global-corporate, tall-skinny-late, kiddy-meal-and-free-toy, united-colours-of-fuck-you-too world, than a good old-fashioned, no-frills, retail blow-job? — Christopher Brookmyre

I had retail businesses. They were beauty businesses, skin care and all that. I got into that as a fluke. I was going to open up a gym. I just had a Men's Fitness cover come out that was the third bestselling of Men's Fitness covers. — Drew Waters

His face held a certain impassivity; you see it in all waiters and valets. They might want to jam a knife through your left eye socket, but you'd never know it from their expression. Working retail, I've acquired a similar look myself. — Ann Aguirre

Retail therapy - usually one of my first resorts - wasn't working; I felt like a cat that smelled pit bull. — M.L.N. Hanover

We're the only major company in the U.S. that is solely in the professional beauty industry. We promised hairdressers when we started that we would stay with them. If I went retail tomorrow then we would be four times our size overnight, but I'm going to be the one guy who kept his word. — John Paul DeJoria

Buffer between commercial, memorial and retail space. — Daniel Libeskind

Many people have a stereotype of what it means to be poor. And it may be somebody they see on the street corner with a sign: "Will work for food." And what they don't think about is that person who's struggling every day. Could be the person who waited on us, took our bank deposit, works in retail, but who is barely above the poverty line. — Robert D. Putnam

If the people of Sheffield could only receive a tenth part of what their knives sell for by retail in America, Sheffield might pave its streets with silver. — William Cobbett

I'm thrilled to be joining Gap Inc., a company that understands the importance of integrating technology and retail in ways that improve the lives of its customers. — Padmasree Warrior

My first job was in retail at the age of 14, and I have worked in the industry ever since. — Rachel Roy

I think one of the big errors people are making right now is thinking that old-style businesses will be obsolete, when actually they will be an important part of this new civilization. Some retail groups are introducing e-commerce and think that the bricks are no longer useful. But they will continue to be important. — Carlos Slim

Two hours a day for two days per week. Four hours. At $7.25 an hour, that gave him a gross income of $29 a week. He is also now a member of the United Food and Commercial Workers International, the union that represents food workers, retail clerks, and farm workers. His monthly dues for the UFCW are $25, all taken out of his first week's check. That makes Owen arguably the most selfless labor activist in America, with 86 percent of his pay going to support his union. — Ron Suskind

So you're the winner of this game show," Seth says, "and you get a choice between a five-piece living room set from Broyhill, suggested retail price three thousand dollars - or - a ten-day trip to the old world charm of Europe." Most people, Seth says, would take the living room set. "It's just that people want something to show for their effort," Seth says. "Like the pharaohs and their pyramids. — Chuck Palahniuk

A civilization without retail bookstores is unimaginable. Like shrines and other sacred meeting places, bookstores are essential artifacts of human nature. The feel of a book taken from the shelf and held in the hand is a magical experience, linking writer to reader. — Jason Epstein

My basic strategy is to stick to my core business, and to my area of expertise. My businesses are all related - retail, shopping centers, banking, real estate and tourism development. Together they create synergy. — Henry Sy

Not too far away from now - in the next 6-7 years - 75 million Americans will be retail buyers of healthcare. And they'll come to the marketplace with their own money and either a subsidy from their employer or a subsidy from their government. And it doesn't much matter - they'll be spending their money. — Mark T Bertolini

In 1953, at the beginning of the Eisenhower era and the glory years of the auto industry, Hudson's had done $153 million in retail sales; in 1981 the downtown Hudson's had done only $44 million - a figure, if adjusted for inflation, about 6 percent of the 1953 total. — David Halberstam

The wealth they had accumulated from retail needed to hide its origins, for it is well known that the purity of gold increases the further removed it is from labor. — Diane Setterfield

This is a book about the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing. You might even add a seventh, retail stores, which Jobs did not quite revolutionize but did reimagine. In addition, he opened the way for a new market for digital content based on apps rather than just websites. Along the way he produced not only transforming products but also, on his second try, a lasting company, endowed with his DNA, that is filled with creative designers and daredevil engineers who could carry forward his vision. In August 2011, right before he stepped down as CEO, the enterprise he started in his parents' garage became the world's most valuable company. — Walter Isaacson

Publishing has no onus to be representative, but a fourth of America lives in conditions close to or below the poverty line. Think about the last time you read a novel in which someone went to cash a benefit check or paid for food in food stamps, or got off a double-shift at a retail store and were having their home or car repossessed. These are the conditions in which much of this country lives and it is a dereliction of capability (not duty) to ignore it in literature. — John Freeman

Once you create and dominate a niche market, then you should gradually expand into related and slightly broader markets. Amazon shows how it can be done. Jeff Bezos's founding vision was to dominate all of online retail, but he very deliberately started with books. There were millions of books to catalog, but they all had roughly the same shape, they were easy to ship, and some of the most rarely sold books - those least profitable for any retail store to keep in stock - also drew the most enthusiastic customers. Amazon became the dominant solution for anyone located far from a bookstore or seeking something unusual. Amazon then had two options: expand the number of people who read books, or expand to adjacent markets. They chose the latter, starting with the most similar markets: CDs, videos, and software. Amazon continued to add categories gradually until it had become the world's general store. The name itself brilliantly encapsulated the company's scaling strategy. — Peter Thiel

I don't think we yet know - because it's probably not big enough - what exactly Amazon does to our cities, but whatever it is, I don't anticipate retail wastelands. If anything, it's maybe a wake-up call to retailers that they just have to offer something meaningful to customers. — Brad Stone

Going forward, we are mindful of the challenges we face in the competitive retail landscape, but we have demonstrated that our concept of building compelling brands that focus on the customers' lifestyles can produce superior results. We will not waver from that concept. — Richard Hayne

Hey!" I exclaimed, seeing the total. "They're charging me retail. Glenn!" I
complained. "They can't do that." I shook it at him. "I shouldn't have to pay retail!"
"What did you expect? You can keep that. It's your copy."
I sat back in a huff and shoved it in my bag with my sticky scarf as he typed his slow, painful way through my report. "Where's this human compassion I keep hearing about?"
"That's it, baby doll," he said, voice smoother than usual. He was laughing at me. — Kim Harrison

(Howard Dean) is proving that the Internet is a better, cheaper, and faster way to raise money than the old glad-handing of special interests and fat cat donors. He's also about to demonstrate that the Internet is a better place to spend campaign dollars than are TV stations and media time buys. The fact that Internet communications is free makes one-on-one retail politics more effective, more rapid, and less costly than mass communication. — Dick Morris

One ATM could do the work of no fewer than thirty-seven human tellers (and, into the bargain, rarely fell ill). In the United States, about half of all those employed in retail banking - some 500,000 people - lost their jobs between 1980 and 1995, thanks in large part to the invention of these silkily efficient machines. — Alain De Botton

Full service brokers, in this day and age of low cost mutual funds and discount brokers, are really nothing more than machines for ripping off retail investors. — Joel Spolsky

I do think that in order for a company to be interesting to the investment community, there needs to be a plan; there needs to be a bigger retail footprint. There needs to be this idea - DNA, lifestyle, words I hate. — Marc Jacobs

90% of new business fail in the first three months of launching, due to lack of proper planning, wrong selection of niche/products and marketing platform. — K. Raveendran

As luck would have (it was) in God's hands. It was me ... The billionaire (part) was a stretch but I thought the almighty dollar was the way to be happy ... and I woke up one morning and I had three retail establishments and a full-blown construction company with partners making great money and I was miserable. — Drew Waters

Goods were arranged in glass cabinets as if they were ancient Egyptian artefacts. I was a contaminant, a fly in the gourmet soup, a spanner in the golden machine that sparkled and hummed before my eyes."

Reid, A. J. (2012-11-08). A Smaller Hell (Kindle Locations 319-321). . Kindle Edition. — A.J. Reid

Maybe I was born to be a merchant, maybe it was fate. I don't know about that. But I know this for sure: I loved retail from the very beginning. — Sam Walton

Investment banking has, in recent years, resembled a casino, and the massive scale of gambling losses has dragged down traditional business and retail lending activities as banks try to rebuild their balance sheets. This was one aspect of modern financial liberalisation that had dire consequences. — Vince Cable

The Customer isn't always right. Sometimes the customer is an asshole. That's the first rule of retail. — Kelly Link

You can only cure retail but you can prevent wholesale. — Brock Chisholm

It was easy for me in my bathrobe to provide really great customer service. As an introvert, it's really much easier to do than when standing in a retail store. — Sophia Amoruso

Trying to move the volume of products we're talking about from place to place to get it ultimately into the customer's hands, to price these items, to market these items, I think the retail business is incredibly complex. But if you get it right, it's a beautiful thing. — Edward Lampert

Retailers are treating everyone the same way who walks in their stores and this doesn't make sense in the world we live in where all customers are not equal. — Peter Fader

I've had a lot of seedy side jobs. I've done it all. I've worked retail at the mall, just tons of side jobs, which I think are amazing for actors. I think everyone should have one! It helps you get more experiences, and the more experiences you have, the more you can channel into a character. — Olesya Rulin

The median startup is a business that's capitalized with about $25,000. The financing of that business comes from the entrepreneur's savings. The business is a retail or personal service business, a hair salon or a clothing store, that kind of thing. — Scott Shane

It is not in vain that the strategic criterion of placing only short runs on the market prevails in order simultaneously to create a feeling of scarcity and avoid an appearance of uniformity, both of which encourage consumer demand. This is such a powerful criterion that it is not uncommon to discontinue production of a much-sought-after product, sometimes to the relative desperation of the shop staff, who were sure they could sell it. — Enrique Badia

What we have is a pay structure that, on basic wages, is higher than market rate, as a general statement. When you look at other forms of retail, whether they be food or non-food, we pay more. If you look at our health care benefits, we pay a lot more. — Steven Burd

Almost no one wants to admit the genius of Jeff Bezos and Amazon. Apparently, many have failed to see that Amazon has become the world's biggest retail company. — Hubert Burda

Even before it opened its retail arm, Beigh was renowned among pashmina cognoscenti for the quality and complexity of the work produced in its workshop, a large, airy, sunlit rectangle of a room directly across from its second-floor shop. — Hanya Yanagihara

People always say to me, 'You've really strived to redefine retail.' But the reality is, I wanted to redefine magazines. — Natalie Massenet

I have always been fascinated by fashion. I never had any interest in waiting tables or bar-tending, so retail was sort of my best option. — Brandon Uranowitz

Mr. Speaker, in 1848, Karl Marx said, a progressive income tax is needed to transfer wealth and power to the state. Thus, Marx's Communist Manifesto had as its major economic tenet a progressive income tax. Think about it, 1848 Karl Marx, Communism ... I say it is time to replace the progressive income tax with a national retail sales tax, and it is time to abolish the IRS, my colleagues. I yield back all the rules, regulations, fear, and intimidation of our current system. — James Traficant

With a strong domestic economy, low national unemployment at 5 percent, and increasing retail sales, the picture should look rosy. But one look at the trade deficit changes all of that. — Jo Ann Emerson

There is a complete disconnect really or should be a disconnect between the retail price of the milk and what's actually going on in the marketplace, and what influences the farm gate price is the export market. — Ian McLeod

I'm paranoid about shopping. I get irritable. I find it tedious and taxing. People say shopping is retail therapy, but I need therapy after shopping. — Anushka Sharma

There may be little room for the display of this supreme qualification in the retail book business, but there is room for some. Be enterprising. Get good people about you. Make your shop windows and your shops attractive. The fact that so many young men and women enter the teaching profession shows that there are still some people willing to scrape along on comparatively little money for the pleasure of following an occupation in which they delight. It is as true to-day as it was in Chaucer's time that there is a class of men who "gladly learn and gladly teach," and our college trustees and overseers and rich alumni take advantage of this and expect them to live on wages which an expert chauffeur would regard as insufficient. Any bookshop worthy of survival can offer inducements at least as great as the average school or college. Under pleasant conditions you will meet pleasant people, for the most part, whom you can teach and form whom you may learn something. — A. Edward Newton

Some people see Black Friday as a much-needed break for their wallet. I see it as retail outlets showing the customers the full weight of their contempt. The frenzy to buy cheap crap from China, the human downgrade of people fighting with each other over items they can probably live without, to me, is an insult. — Henry Rollins

I've worked everywhere. I worked in a warehouse packing surf supplies, a restaurant washing dishes, in retail, and I was a 'sandwich artist' at Subway. — Margot Robbie

One of the great unwritten chapters of retail intelligence programming featured a "personal shopper" program that all-too-accurately modeled the shoppers' desires and outputted purchase ideas based on what shoppers really wanted as opposed to what they wanted known that they wanted. This resulted in one overcompensatingly masculine test user receiving suggestions for an anal plug and a tribute art book for classic homoerotic artist Tom of Finland, while a female test user in the throes of a nasty divorce received suggestions for a small handgun, a portable bandsaw, and several gallons of an industrial solvent used to reduce organic matter to an easily drainable slurry. After history's first recorded instance of a focus group riot, the personal shopper program was extensively rewritten. — John Scalzi

In the mid-1980s, there was a grassroots desire for American culture. Maybe it was not a definite harbinger to what was to come in terms of the fall of the Soviet Union, but it certainly gave a heads up to the global merging of the retail culture. — Brian Shactman

You replace it by 23 percent tax, a frank, transparent tax embedded in the cost at retail, and everybody gets to takes their whole check home. And the average income earner gets a 50 percent increase in take-home pay. — John Linder

The investment we're all looking for is actually saving labor ... Look at what the internet is doing to retail. — James Chanos

In today's retail environment, competition comes from every conceivable retail format. To succeed, we have to operate more efficiently and compete more effectively against players at all levels of the retail demographic. There is no question that this is a bold and exciting move, and one I believe will have a positive impact on competitive retailing for American consumers in the longer term. — Bill Vaughan

People in retail banks are not smart. They have a business model that's quite difficult to not make money out of - but still they somehow manage it. — Peter Hargreaves

I spend all my time right now trying to combat music retail and copyright. — Garth Brooks

Would be better served by continuing to hold an ownership position in a pure-play sporting goods retailer rather than a retail conglomerate. — Jack Smith

I had 13 job offers out of college. I went to Bullock's department store and had a fantastic interview, but was skeptical. I knew retail didn't pay much. — Terry J. Lundgren

An implicit confession is almost as bad as an implicit faith; wicked men commonly confess their sins by wholesale, We are all sinners; but the true penitent confesses his sins by retail. — Thomas Brooks

I mean, our primary businesses in wholesale pipelines, utilities, retail, were all doing extremely well. — Kenneth Lay

With the evolution of online retail, however, has come the revelation that being able to recategorize and rearrange products on the fly unlocks their real value. — Chris Anderson

Many retail stores have consumer trackers that study how long your eyes linger on one product, whether you follow it through by touch, and things that you buy. You can redesign things on a shelf, all by tracking such information. — Jan Chipchase

The ventures that keep things light and fun, easy to understand, that have a compelling story, a sexy retail product, will have an easier time getting people to rally around them and contribute. A start-up doing something that's difficult to communicate or doesn't offer any kind of retail product will have a tougher go at it. — Jessica Jackley